The flow of illegal immigrant children into the United States is expected to rise to record-breaking numbers in 2016 as deportations decrease, according to leading members of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee.

At least 20,455 unaccompanied minors have been caught during fiscal year 2016 along the U.S.-Mexico border as of last month, according to committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), who warned that if this trend continues, the number of illegal minors could eclipse a massive 2014 surge that strained the resources of the Department of Homeland Security and prompted investigations into the Obama administration’s handling of the issue.

While illegal border crossings surge, the number of children actually being deported from the United States is declining, senators said during a Tuesday hearing with senior Obama administration officials.

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“If these trends continue, we can expect to see an even greater number of minors crossing the border this year than in 2014,” Grassley said. “No one is following up on these individuals when they skip their immigration hearings, unless they are receiving post-release services. They are also not enforcement priorities for this administration. This means a lot of these minors are nowhere to be found.”

Thomas Homan, a top official in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, confirmed that trials for these illegal immigrants could take “months or years” to complete.

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As border crossings rise to unprecedented levels, the Obama administration has deported just 4,680 of more than 127,000 minors who were apprehended on the border during the past two-and-a-half years.=

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